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Rear Adm. John Kirby Gives Press Briefing On Ukraine, Earthquake Relief, Shooting Down Unidentified Object Over Alaska, Chinese Spy Balloon. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired February 10, 2023 - 14:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[14:30:00]

REAR ADM. JOHN KIRBY, NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL COORDINATOR FOR STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS: But we're working -- and this is really important point. We're working in lockstep with our Turkish counterparts here to make sure that what we're providing is what they need at the scale and the speed that they need.

And not, you know, not trying to overwhelm their system with unneeded material or unneeded capabilities.

So, there is -- you talked about the "Bush," but there is a lot of military capability on the continent under the European commanders' authority that could be used.

But, again, we want to make sure we're doing this in a -- at an appropriately through Turkish counterparts.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: On the visit by President Zelenskyy --

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Can you speak about how --

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: I hear you. I hear you.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Just the last question --

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Just the last question, can you speak on how Brazil can be a partner in monitoring irregular migrations, specifically because the president has been around for Africans coming to the U.S. through Mexico.

KIRBY: As I said, I would expect President Lula and President Biden to talk about the challenges of irregular migration.

You saw the vice president just this week holding a conference of some of our neighbors about this call to action to try to get at the root causes. And we look and would welcome President Lula's ideas and perspectives on how we can get at the root causes of all of the migration in this hemisphere.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Thank you. When I hear "news," I just get very excited.

(CROSSTALK)

(LAUGHTER)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: So, can we just go back for a moment? So, another aircraft of some sort, airship, balloon, something was shot down today.

Who owns it? What were the circumstances? Was the president directly involved in ordering this? And is wreckage being recovered?

(CROSSTALK)

KIRBY: I'm going to try -- remind me if I forget something.

Yes, the president absolutely was involved in this decision. He ordered it. At the recommendation of Pentagon leaders. And he wanted it taken down. And they did that.

They did it using fighter aircraft, assigned to U.S. Northern Command.

The Pentagon will have more to say about the details of this later on this afternoon. It is only just within the last hour.

We're calling this an object because that's the best description we have right now.

We do not know who owns it, whether it is a -- whether it is state- owned or corporate-owned or privately-owned, we don't know.

We don't know. We don't know if it is state-owned. And we don't understand the full purpose. We don't have any -- we don't have any information that would confirm a stated purpose for this object.

We do expect to be able to recover the debris since it fell not only within our territorial space, but on what we believe is frozen water.

So a recovery effort will be made. And we're hopeful it will be successful. And we can learn a little bit more about it.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Was its appearance like the Chinese aircraft?

KIRBY: No, it was -- it was much, much smaller than the spy balloon that we took down last Saturday.

The way it was described to me was roughly the size of a small car. As opposed to a payload that was, like, two or three buses sized, right? So much, much smaller. And not of the same -- not -- no significant payload, if you will.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Is it now the policy of the United States that if unidentified aircraft are over U.S. territory that it is likely the president will choose to shoot it down?

KIRBY: The president will always act in the best interest of our national security and in the safety and security of the American people.

(CROSSTALK)

John, so the Pentagon ordered the object taken down over Alaska --

KIRBY: The president ordered it.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: The president ordered it.

Is it a fair takeaway then that the Pentagon regrets not taking down the first balloon before it crossed the entire U.S.?

KIRBY: I'm not going to speak for the Pentagon. I can tell you that the president doesn't regret the way that we handled the first balloon.

That time -- first of all, apples and oranges here in terms of size. This was size of a small car.

And it was over a very sparsely populated area, but also more critically over -- it was over water, water space when we ordered this down as we did the -- as we did the last one. But completely different size.

And the debris field for this, we expect to be much, much smaller than would have been for the other one. That's difference one.

[14:34:59]

Difference two, we knew for a fact that the PRC balloon was in fact a surveillance asset, and capable of surveillance over sensitive military sites.

And that it had self-propulsion and maneuver capabilities. There is no indication this one did.

The other one, the first one was able to maneuver, slow down, speed up. It was very purposeful, that flight path, with -- inside, inside the jet stream.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: That would suggest that many (INAUDIBLE) overlap --

(CROSSTALK)

KIRBY: Well, the Pentagon has already spoken to this question about whether or not they should have or could have shot it down over Alaska air space. It was hours and hours of testimony yesterday on that. UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: On the communications, though, we still don't

know -- correct me if I'm wrong, we don't know what intelligence or communications could have been collected or what devices they were targeting as I understand it.

So that being said, how can the president say it was not a major breach. We don't know that.

KIRBY: Well, what we do know is -- we knew the basic flight path of this thing. And we were able to take steps at sensitive military sites that we believed would be along the flight path to significantly curtail any intelligence ability that the Chinese could get from, from the balloon.

Certainly curtail anything that would be above and beyond, you know, what they normally try to collect through other means.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Thank you, John.

Was this latest object shot down within the last hour, was that based upon any information gleaned from the monitoring of the last balloon over the last -- over the last week?

In terms of what you learned about that Chinese program, did that inform the decision to shoot this down?

KIRBY: I think I would be careful saying anything specific to what we've learned from that last platform.

And, you know, we were able to collect some information from it while it was in flight. That's another reason why we let it traverse overland the way it did.

But I would be -- I would not say that information gleaned from our surveillance of that surveillance balloon provided insights that permitted this detection and track.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: And as of this moment, are you convinced you shot down -- do you know what you shot down? It wasn't just a harmless weather balloon that, you know, that there was some motivation to fly this over U.S. air space, or --

(CROSSTALK)

KIRBY: I think we're going to try to learn more. I can tell you it was an object. It was at 40,000 feet. And the predominant concern by the president was a safety of flight issue at that altitude.

Remember the one that was shot down last Saturday was at 65-plus- thousand feet. So no threat to civilian aircraft. This one at 40,000 feet could have posed a threat to civilian aircraft.

And it did not appear to have the maneuverable capability that the other one did. So, virtually at the whim of the wind. UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Thank you.

So to follow up on what you said about civilian aircraft, is that what you meant initially when you said there was a reasonable threat to shoot it down?

(CROSSTALK)

KIRBY: Yes, my exact words were reasonable threat to the safety of civilian flight.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: OK. And given what you said earlier about intent, with regard to the Chinese spy balloon, does the U.S. give any credence to the Chinese argument that the balloon accidentally veered off course and ended up where it did?

KIRBY: Which -- the one from last week? Yes, say that again.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Would the U.S. give any credence to the Chinese argument that this thing accidentally veered off course and ended up where it did?

KIRBY: No.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: So was it targeting specific places? Was it targeting military sites?

KIRBY: What we know is that the flight path executed took it over sensitive military sites.

What we also know is that it could maneuver. That it had propulsion capability and steerage capability, and could slow down, speed up. And that it was on a path to transit over sensitive military sites.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Thanks. Admiral Kirby.

On the latest object, you said it did not appear to have the maneuverability, capabilities that the Chinese spy balloon had. Did it have any maneuverability or was it flying on its own?

KIRBY: At this time, all I can tell you is that it did not appear to have the ability to independently maneuver. We'll attempt recovery and we'll see what we can learn more from.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Sorry, one more on the Chinese spy balloon.

[14:40:01]

We're reporting that the U.S. is about to impose export controls on Chinese companies believed to have been involved in the balloon surveillance program.

Can you confirm that and say when the administration might impose those export controls? KIRBY: I'm not in a position to confirm those reports right now. I

would refer you to the Department of Treasury.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Thank you.

I think you said this was shot down or landed in the waters or the frozen waters off the coast of Alaska, correct?

KIRBY: That is our initial assessment.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Is the policy still considering the first one was shot down off the east coast and this high-altitude object was shot down off the west coast, is the policy at this point in time you can shoot it down if it is over a body of water?

KIRBY: I wouldn't derive from these two incidents some sort of policy that comes out of it. The president will always act in the best interests of the American people, and international security.

Last week, we were talking about a surveillance asset. That was purposefully flown over the continental United States.

In the case today, we're talking about an object. Again, we don't know a lot about it, but that at its altitude represented a potential threat to the safety of flying customers, civil air traffic.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Based on your broad and deep experience, who do you think might own or have flown this thing in the air?

KIRBY: I have no idea.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: You say you don't know who owns it, who is flying it. Has the administration reached out to the Chinese to see if they will claim this new object?

KIRBY: I know of no outreach this afternoon to the Chinese government about this.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: The State Department over the weekend or last few days, since the first spy balloon, confirmed they think the Chinese spy balloons have gone over 40 countries.

Considering that fact and the new development today, what's next on a larger diplomatic front? The U.S. talking with allies about how to police the skies, about how to bring this to the U.N. to figure out what to do?

KIRBY: We are talking to dozens of nations who we know have been overflown by Chinese surveillance balloons, part of this program that the Chinese have invested in, to share with them the context and information we have learned by the forensics we have done since we came in office about this particular program.

And I would remind you, we briefed Congress in a classified setting in August about this. This is not something we haven't been trying to learn more about. We have been aware of it and trying to glean more information from it.

And this -- we expect that the recovery of the debris from the balloon we shot down on Saturday, last Saturday, will help us gain even more information.

But we are in the active conversations with many of these countries who we know have been overflown.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Yes, where specifically in Alaska was the high- altitude object shot down?

KIRBY: I'm going to -- the Pentagon will be talking more about this later. They'll probably have more detail for you.

But the general area would be just off the very, very northeastern part of Alaska, right near the Alaska/Canada border.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Near the Arctic Ocean?

KIRBY: Yes, in fact that's where it went down on that -- on that northern side of Alaska near the Canadian border on water that is frozen in the -- yes --

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Over land?

KIRBY: No, it was. It was.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: OK.

KIRBY: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: And it was shot down within the last hour. When did you -- when did the first -- when did the U.S. first get intelligence that it existed?

KIRBY: The knowledge about the balloon and the track first came to our attention last evening.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: OK. What time thereabouts?

KIRBY: I don't have an exact time on the clock for you. It was last evening.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: You ruled out -- not ruled out, but you have not determined it was surveillance in nature, correct?

KIRBY: We haven't ruled anything in or out. And that's why we're calling this thing an object. And --

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: You just called it a balloon. You misspoke there?

(CROSSTALK)

KIRBY: Yes, I'm sorry.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: You can't say it is a balloon?

You have balloon on the brain right now.

(LAUGHTER)

KIRBY: This was -- this was an object. Just to clarify, I'm not classifying it as a balloon right now. It is an object. We're trying to learn more from it.

That it landed on what -- on water that is frozen could help us assist and make it easier for us to try to recover some of the debris. U.S. Northern Command is examining what the possibilities for that are.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: You said you have no knowledge of any outreach to the Chinese yet from the administration. Are there plans to reach out now?

KIRBY: I know of no plans to reach out to the Chinese, specifically on this.

[14:45:02]

I want to stress, again, we don't know what entity owns this object. There is no indication that it is from a nation or an institution or an individual. We just don't know.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Or foreign entity, right?

KIRBY: We don't know who owns this object.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Thank you. Thank you.

Are you tracking any other similar objects at this time?

KIRBY: I'm not aware of any other tracks.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: I know you said this was due to a civilian aircraft threat. But why not wait until it is over warmer water where you could more easily recover --

(CROSSTALK)

KIRBY: It wasn't heading over warmer water. It was heading over the Arctic. It is not very warm.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Thank you, Karina.

Thank you, Admiral.

One question on today's incident and then one on a separate subject, if I may.

Given how little was known about this object, at the time that our forces shot it down, is it safe to say that when the president ordered that it be shot down, he did not know whether it was a manned or unmanned object?

KIRBY: We were able to get some fighter aircraft up and around it before the order to shoot it down. And the pilot's assessment was that this was not manned.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: On a different subject, after the State of the Union address, minutes after he finished delivering the State of the Union address, President Biden encountered, in the halls of the capitol, Brittany Alkonis, the wife of your Navy comrade who remains in prison in Japan.

And the president told Mrs. Alkonis, "We're going to get this done."

I wonder if you can tell us if the Alkonis case figured in the conversation that the president had with the Japanese prime minister when he visited here last month? And if you can flush out the president's promise to Mrs. Alkonis.

I know generally you don't like to say a whole lot about these kinds of efforts, what can you tell us about what is being done on his behalf?

KIRBY: I would go back to what I said last time, James, the president is well aware of this case. And he's well aware of what the family is going through.

He's also well aware of concerns by the Japanese government with respect to their judicial system. And he's got the team working on this.

I'm not going to disclose personal conversations that the president had either with Mrs. Alkonis or with Prime Minister Kishida. But he's well aware of it. He's tracking it. And so is the national security team.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Thank you, Karine.

Admiral, over here. Wanted to ask you --

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: -- one on what you described and the other on Ukraine.

On the incident that happened in the last hour, is there any line of communication you can describe that has been ongoing over the course of last two weeks on the diplomatic side of things?

I know the defense secretary says that his call to his counterpart was not returned from China. On the diplomatic side of things, are there lines of communication between the U.S. and China right now? KIRBY: Well, certainly, look, we have an embassy in Beijing. We have

diplomatic discussions routinely happening with Beijing. So, of course the diplomatic channels remain open.

Sadly, the military ones do not appear to be open right now. Secretary Austin made a good-faith effort to reach out to his counterpart and was rebuffed.

And that's unfortunate. Particularly when at times like this you want to keep as open as you can the lines of communication, and the president is committed to that.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: On Ukraine, President Zelenskyy was in the U.K. earlier this week. And he received a promise from the U.K. government that the U.K. would train Ukrainian pilots on NATO-standard jet fighters.

Can you tell me if you think that's a good idea? Is that something that the U.S. is considering in terms of training Ukrainian pilots on NATO aircraft as well?

KIRBY: Well if they're going to get Western aircraft, then they're going to need to be trained on them.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: They'll get Western aircraft?

KIRBY: That would be up to the nations that may be willing to provide aircraft.

I've said it before, probably tired of hearing me say it, but these are all sovereign decisions.

And if a NATO nation or even a non-NATO nation wants to provide capabilities like fighter aircraft to Ukraine, that's certainly their decision to make.

And one would assume that if you're going to introduce a system into a military, that they have no experience with, that there is going to have to be some training that goes along with that.

We're doing it right now. Fort Sill, Oklahoma, we have Ukrainian soldiers learning how to use a Patriot battery. And outside of Ukraine, people are helping train them on combined arms maneuvers.

[14:50:04]

So, it is not unusual to do that if an advanced capability is provided. But that's going to be a national decision.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Thank you, Admiral.

Isn't there a concern that these objects, the object and the balloon were both discovered when they're already flying over U.S. airspace? Should they be detected before they enter the U.S.?

KIRBY: I think we're going to continue to learn a lot about how these things are or can be detected in a better way.

You heard the NORTHCOM commander talk about certain gaps that he felt he had in his domain awareness. So from this incident last week, we will learn. We will certainly learn about the capabilities of that surveillance asset.

We also expect to learn more about our own processes and own systems for detection and tracking.

I don't want to get into exactly how this one was detected, but I can assure you that we're going to try to improve our own knowledge base with respect to these systems.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE). Can you say anything about the proximity of it and its flight path to the oil fields near Prudhoe Bay? And was there any threat at all at any point to that equipment in that region of Alaska?

KIRBY: I'd refer you to the Pentagon for more detail about the track. This all just happened within the last hour, so I don't know what the proximity was to oil fields.

And your second question was?

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: You know, the oil fields basically.

KIRBY: Again, we just don't know what this object was. It would be difficult for me to point to a threat or a specific concern such as oil fields when we don't really understand what this object was doing.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: And then another question, completely different topic.

The Russians have said they're going to cut oil output now. What is the U.S. response to that?

And will you reach out to OPEC to compensate the difference so the price of oil doesn't escalate at a time when you're just starting to see inflation --

(CROSSTALK)

KIRBY: Once again, Mr. Putin is willing to weaponize energy. And this move, if it proves to be true, doesn't come as a big surprise as a reaction to the price gap.

And it just shows you the lengths which he's willing to use resources like energy, again, as a weapon.

What the United States will do, have done, continue to do is work with allies and partners to make sure we can better balance supply and demand and try to meet that need.

It's important, we still believe, that Mr. Putin not be allowed to profiteer in an inappropriate way off the oil he puts on the market so he can then fund his military in the field. (CROSSTALK)

KIRBY: I don't have any diplomatic outreach to speak to today. We'll continue to talk to allies and partners. Certainly, OPEC falls in that category. But I don't have any specific conversations to talk about.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Thank you, John.

The Chinese are claiming ownership of the balloon. Will you send the balloon back to China?

KIRBY: There are no plans to send the debris we are recovering back to China. We are going to pull it up off the bottom of the ocean and learn more about this capability.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Iran is building a drone factory in Russia. And North Korea is receiving military drones from Russia. How do you view cooperation between North Korea, Iran and Russia?

KIRBY: I can't confirm those specific reports.

But I was up here not long ago talking about the burgeoning defense relationship between Iran and Russia, which is not only not good for the people of Ukraine, it's not good for the people of the Middle East.

Because it will flow both ways. Russian capabilities to very well end up in Iranian hands.

I would say the same about North Korea. We know -- I got up here and showed you pictures. We know they're providing ammunition to Russia artillery ammunition specifically.

Again, that's not only not good for the people of Ukraine, it's not good for the Korean peninsula and the region there that Russia and North Korea could be, again, developing a deeper defense relationship.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Just a few more. You said it was discovered last night. Was it flying consistently at an altitude of 40,000 feet that entire time?

KIRBY: Roughly, yes.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Were there -- given that, were there any sightings you're aware of by airmen, civilian aircraft --

(CROSTALK)

KIRBY: No, sir.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: And just to nail it down, can you tell us when the president gave the order to shoot it down?

[14:55:01] KIRBY: Gave the order to shoot it down this morning.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Again, to just keep following up on this same topic, the speed with which you guys -- with which the president apparently decided to shoot it down, having just discovered -- the first intelligence last night and by the morning he was saying shoot it down.

Was there something more specific about the threat than just generally being in the airspace at which the height of which --

(CROSSTALK)

KIRBY: The predominant reason, the predominant reason driving the president's decision was the safety of flight issue.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: I understand that. But that's a really big area up there. There's not all that many planes. It's not like it was middle of the northeast corridor.

KIRBY: But --

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Is there no way in which you could have said, hey, airplanes, steer clear of this area until we know better what this thing is, because we're -- in other words, was there some reason --

(CROSTALK)

KIRBY: The president wasn't willing to take that kind of a risk in time, because this thing did not appear to be self-maneuvering. And therefore at the mercy of prevailing winds, it's much less predictable.

And so the president just wasn't willing to take that risk.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Thank you.

You mentioned that there were fighter aircraft who were able to determine that it likely was not manned. Were those fighter aircraft able to determine anything else about it from up close that they wouldn't be able to find out otherwise?

KIRBY: They worked really hard to get as much information as they could about this object.

Given its size, which was much smaller, and the capabilities on the fighter aircraft themselves, the speed at which they were flying, it was difficult for the pilots to glean a whole lot of information.

Not like we were able to glean off the other -- the balloon -- not the other -- the balloon -- thank you, Michael.

(LAUGHTER)

KIRBY: And we also had several days to track that. So there was a limit to how much they could divine.

Also it was detected at night. And so the first engagement by fighter aircraft late last night was, again, difficult for them. It's just -- it was a small object. And these are fighter aircraft flying at pretty high speed.

The ability to get a lot of -- to glean a lot of information was limited, which is why they did another flight earlier this morning to see if we could get more.

They did the best they could. But again, the speed and the conditions up there as well as the size of the object made it a little bit more difficult.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Just to confirm, there was a flight last night to do some surveillance?

KIRBY: Yes. That's right. There was at least two that I know of. Again, the Pentagon will probably have more detail but at least two.

Last night, a couple of fighter aircraft surveilled it to try to glean as much information as we could so we had a sense. Then another such flight today and that flight ended up in a shootdown.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Just one more question.

KARINE JEAN-PIERRE, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: We're running out of time.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: From the White House podium, do you have a message for whoever is responsible for this aircraft or anyone who may have similar aircraft about what the White House response would be?

KIRBY: Rather than sending some sort of message in that way, I would just tell you that we're going to remain vigilant about our airspace. We're going to remain vigilant about the skies over the United States.

As I said earlier, the president takes his obligations to protect our national security interest and those of -- and the safety and the security of the American people as paramount.

And he's always going for make -- he's always going to decide and act in a way that is commensurate with that duty. That's the real takeaway here.

JEAN-PIERRE: Way in the back.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Did the U.S. ask Brazil to block Iranian warships from docking in Rio? And if so, why?

KIRBY: We did not ask the Brazilians to block that. Those ships are sanctioned ships, specifically. And we don't want to see them dock anywhere in this hemisphere. We've been very clear about that.

But there was no specific ask made of Brazil. That's a sovereign decision that -- (CROSSTALK)

KIRBY: that President Lula has to make.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: I want to follow the question I asked you in September. In light of the Chinese spy balloon incident, does this administration think the purchase of land near national bases are considered a security threat?

[14:59:50]

KIRBY: We are always concerned about potential foreign collection near or around our military sites. And you're right. Last week is a good example of that.

We take that seriously, whether that's terrestrial related or whether it's from the air. And I think I'll just leave it at that.